I am an Audiophile who is about to build a "somewhat" custom home that will include a Media Room option. Right now the project looks like this...
So now is my opportunity to "herd" the builder in the right direction on some best practices to make the most of this opportunity. Can't change the room dimensions (17'w x 19'd x 10'h) or layout, but will be able to a lot within those boundaries. Don't know how he will deal with the idea of decoupling clips and green glue, but I intend to push what the forum thinks would be "best practice" as much as possible without driving everyone nuts.
I have some decent sound equipment available to go including B&W speakers. 804s for the fronts and HTM2 for the center. I have DS3 B&W for side surround and Solids for the rear fill.
My first question is how difficult is it to use floor standing and book shelf style speakers in a HT application? Do I need to look at doing an acoustic transparent screen/front to hide them to make things work right? Is it a good practice to mount the book shelf B&Ws on the side walls? Are floor standing rears not a good idea? Should I scrap the floor speaker idea all together and go with traditional HT wall/ceiling speaker configuration? I don't have an unlimited budget for this but I also am able to invest to get this correct. I can tell you I'm looking forward to having the B&W 804/HTM2s in this acoustically superior environment. Would really like to use them front stage. The remainder can be changed with not many regrets.
Also, most of the new home designs we've looked at have the cabling coming out of the middle of the wall the screen is on. That seems a dumb place for the electronics to me. Shouldn't electronics be place out of sight at the rear of the room or even in the room next to the MR?. My layout will have a center-rear located door into a Game Room behind the MR so access from in there would require leaving the room, but would be out of sight. There is space for a closet or rack area in the rear wall of the Media Room would an equipment closet back there be a better idea?
I'm sure that is enough to start with as I continue to cruise the remainder of the Forum for more info.
Thanks!!

Can't change the room dimensions (17'w x 19'd x 10'h) or layout, but will be able to a lot within those boundaries. Don't know how he will deal with the idea of decoupling clips and green glue, but I intend to push what the forum thinks would be "best practice" as much as possible without driving everyone nuts.

I thought that location looked familiar... (hint: put your location in your profile, you'll get better 'local' advice) I kicked off my search for a place to build a new home in that community.

Good luck getting the builder to get into decoupling clips, green glue or the like. Best bet will be to get to know your project manager ASAP to see what he'll allow. Another option is to see if they'll leave the room as an "unfinished bonus room" so you can get someone else to finish it. But that's also not likely to be something they'll sign up for (especially in today's economy)...

The room size is very good, they're usually way too narrow.

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My first question is how difficult is it to use floor standing and book shelf style speakers in a HT application? Do I need to look at doing an acoustic transparent screen/front to hide them to make things work right?

Absolutely can be done. An AT screen can be used to "hide" the speakers if you want, but they can also be placed just off the screen L/R and below. Be aware that an AT screen will eat up 1-2' of depth in the room. That may be an issue depending on how much seating you want. With a rear entrance to the room, getting two rows of theater recliners will take good planning to get right.

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Is it a good practice to mount the book shelf B&Ws on the side walls? Are floor standing rears not a good idea?

More a question of aesthetics than anything else...

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Should I scrap the floor speaker idea all together and go with traditional HT wall/ceiling speaker configuration?

If you've got speakers that you like, and want to use the space for listening as well as a theater - keep them. Big part of the budget should go towards speakers, if you can avoid that chunk, more to allocate elsewhere.

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Also, most of the new home designs we've looked at have the cabling coming out of the middle of the wall the screen is on. That seems a dumb place for the electronics to me.

They're generally wiring for wall-mounted displays (big LCDs), or for the electronics to be in a console under the screen. Really not bad, but yes, I prefer them in the back if you can do it.

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Shouldn't electronics be place out of sight at the rear of the room or even in the room next to the MR?. My layout will have a center-rear located door into a Game Room behind the MR so access from in there would require leaving the room, but would be out of sight. There is space for a closet or rack area in the rear wall of the Media Room would an equipment closet back there be a better idea?

Post the floorplan or a link if you can, much easier to visualize. Any small closet is great, especially if you can poke the equipment "rack" through the wall to access from within the theater. Having to leave the room to put in a disc or make other non-remote-controlled adjustments is a PITA...

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I don't have an unlimited budget for this

You're building a new house - you should give up the silly notion of a budget early. Will save you time when you start doing your "selections". And no, the builder won't nickel-and-dime you to death. They work in $100 bills.

Good initial advice. I think an equipment closet accessible from the MR is a good idea. I also see your point on the wiring location if you have a TV vs a Projector. Just don't envision it a HT with a TV, but with things like the 93" Mitsubishi DLP out now, that's getting a bit more realistic, I guess.
My wife seems to like the idea of NOT hiding my B&Ws. She loves the look of the Rosewood so maybe they will be allowed to live visibly located around the screen. The side and rears are all Black and will disappear with dim lights, so may not be a distraction if I mount the sides up in the corner on either side. They are fairly small. And I may try the rear floor standing and see if they are in the way with the limited space. If so, I could always go to CCM7.3 for the rear and mount them in the rear wall or ceiling. Should be space in either place.
Next question, how important is sound/wall deadening? Is that mainly to keep the sound from bothering others outside the room or is it to improve acoustics within the theater? I really don't care if the sound gets out because my wife and I plus any guests will be in the MR watching the movie anyway. Won't be anyone outside to disturb. I know it's important to eliminate any rattles but I don't need to fight the green glue battle unless it's somewhat important to me.

Next question, how important is sound/wall deadening? Is that mainly to keep the sound from bothering others outside the room or is it to improve acoustics within the theater? I really don't care if the sound gets out because my wife and I plus any guests will be in the MR watching the movie anyway. Won't be anyone outside to disturb. I know it's important to eliminate any rattles but I don't need to fight the green glue battle unless it's somewhat important to me.

Planning on having Kids? imagine not being able to watch a good flick because Junior needs to go to bed at 8. Wife not feeling well? then don't plan on relaxing in the theater. Wife not interested in the latest action flick and wants to read a book? Trust me soundproofing is good investment if you plan on staying in this house over 5 years.

The other thing about sound management is keeping the room quiet. There's only so much dynamic range available, and if you turn up the volume to deal with the higher noise floor created by noise from the refrigerator or HVAC, you make the loud parts of the soundtrack too loud and risk running into bothersome distortion as you run out of headroom. None of this relates directly to treating the sound within the room (managing reflected sound waves and bass ringing, etc), but the better the start, the easier those things should be.

Especially when starting with a 10' high ceiling, you've got great potential to have a fully decoupled structure - a room within a room. The challenge will be communicating that to your builder and getting him to work with the subcontractors to actually execute a proper design, assuming you decide to go for it. Check out the articles about room within a room construction, staggered stud walls, dead vents, and double drywall at forum member Ted White's website, soundproofingcompany.com and see what some of your options are, if you haven't already. The techinques that would need to be employed are non-standard and will raise eyebrows with the framers and drywallers, but are really the best way if you want everything quiet inside and quiet outside.

Planning on having Kids? imagine not being able to watch a good flick because Junior needs to go to bed at 8. Wife not feeling well? then don't plan on relaxing in the theater. Wife not interested in the latest action flick and wants to read a book? Trust me soundproofing is good investment if you plan on staying in this house over 5 years.

Actually the kids have run away from home to lives of their own. Grand children would be the only possibility and that's not happening now. It's a good point though. Just trying to understand how important it is to the actual HT experience vs just an inconvenience.

The other thing about sound management is keeping the room quiet. There's only so much dynamic range available, and if you turn up the volume to deal with the higher noise floor created by noise from the refrigerator or HVAC, you make the loud parts of the soundtrack too loud and risk running into bothersome distortion as you run out of headroom. None of this relates directly to treating the sound within the room (managing reflected sound waves and bass ringing, etc), but the better the start, the easier those things should be.

Especially when starting with a 10' high ceiling, you've got great potential to have a fully decoupled structure - a room within a room. The challenge will be communicating that to your builder and getting him to work with the subcontractors to actually execute a proper design, assuming you decide to go for it. Check out the articles about room within a room construction, staggered stud walls, dead vents, and double drywall at forum member Ted White's website, soundproofingcompany.com and see what some of your options are, if you haven't already. The techinques that would need to be employed are non-standard and will raise eyebrows with the framers and drywallers, but are really the best way if you want everything quiet inside and quiet outside.

Fred

Good information. Now the challenge will be to get the builder/contractor on board with the idea. It's those sort of links I need. I'm sifting though the "what not to do" thread and also the AT links thread. Still a LOT of information to sift through even in just those two! But hey, I love a challenge. That's why I'm building a house!

I was going into a divorce and didn't know how it would all work out. Still miss it though. It had a really unique sound with that bullitt intake and some exhaust. I only did some bolt ons so it was maybe a high 13s car.

I used to post over on the bullitt forum years ago, havent been there since......

I am also going with the crazy notion of having audiophile speakers in my theater. I have made provisions to have speakers behind the screen and out in front well into the room. I basically ran a conduit from the back of the stage to the front so I can run speakers in either location. My center channel will remain behind the screen but I think I'll likely end up with the tower speakers out in front away from the walls. At least I have the flexibility to do either.

Definitely don't hide those speakers! B&Ws are beautiful (well, the Nautilus are in the eye of the beholder...). Looks like a great room to work with. You should look into acoustic panels at the first reflection points.

Petew, that's some serious toe-in. Are they crossing in front of the main listening position? I like my Paradigm Studio 60s crossing exactly at, or just behind, the ears of the MLS. Haven't played with B&Ws much, though.

The room is a blank slate right now in more ways than one. The builder worked with me on a lot of stuff in the house including allowing me to do custom wiring in the room. But he wasn't up to doing anything other than basic sound proofing. Just insulation in all 4 walls, ceiling and floor. When I asked about de-coupling the walls he looked at me like I was from Mars, so acoustically things are pretty basic. So my plan is, to set the room up as is with only the projector, screen and speakers with no additional sound proofing or deadening. See what I have and start modifying/upgrading from there. I'm not concerned with sound escaping and not much concerned with sound intrusion unless it come from mechanical stuff like the HVAC system. It's just the wife and me and she is a HT participant. Nobody outside to bother or make noise. As far as acoustics, I'll just add bass traps, absorption material, and move components until I'm satisfied. That's the plan on the acoustic side.
The Video side is a little more sorted for me. I've decided the 8010 Epson is the best value for me. I want good 3D and lots of lumens. The catch is, I like to sit fairly close to the screen and am struggling with the combination of viewing angle, screen gain and screen size. The first row eyes will be 11 ft from the screen. With a 10ft wide screen that give me an angle of 47 from the center seat. A 2.35:1 screen that wide is about 133" which is pretty big for 3D. So I look at high gain screens. Even a 1.5 gain recommend in the are of 30 degrees. The High Power Da-Lite screen is a 2.4 gain with a 30deg viewing angle. Would pushing that angle to almost 50 make it unusable?

Having gone through the homebuilding process in Texas, I didn't even notice that in the picture... Doesn't surprise me in the least. The "site built" ladders created from scrap wood was the one that shocked me during my build. Roofers without safety gear, electricians working in the dark, all pretty "normal".

Glad to see another theater going in from the ground up! Looks like you'll have your theater finished WAY before I will! Keep the pics coming, and that's an awesome looking house you have!

With regard to the scaffolding, bricks, and lack of hard hats. There's a similar scene at my house now as well. These guys throw stacks of bricks up to the guys on the scaffolding, and people are walking around under them. That's trust! Or they've been hit on the head enough times that they can't remember to be concerned

Hijack isn't a problem. Just hoping someone will weigh-in on the question I posted a while back about the importance of the screen size/angle/gain relationship I'm struggling with.
On the build subject... you'll love this. Brick tossing

The catch is, I like to sit fairly close to the screen and am struggling with the combination of viewing angle, screen gain and screen size. The first row eyes will be 11 ft from the screen. With a 10ft wide screen that give me an angle of 47 from the center seat. A 2.35:1 screen that wide is about 133" which is pretty big for 3D. So I look at high gain screens. Even a 1.5 gain recommend in the are of 30 degrees. The High Power Da-Lite screen is a 2.4 gain with a 30deg viewing angle. Would pushing that angle to almost 50 make it unusable?

Best advice is to wait until you're finished with the room and have the projector on hand. Throw an image on the wall, sit in your seating location, and see what feels right to you. I've got a roll of photographer's backdrop (big roll of bright white paper) I used to check the screen size (you're welcome to a cut off the roll if you want to drive 10 minutes).

My front row is 10' from a 108" 16:9 or 136" 2:35 screen. I wouldn't want it to be bigger. And if that was my primary row, it would be smaller. It's big, but not uncomfortable. The size is great at my second row about 15'6".

First, your HT is awesome. Your offer for a loan of the backdrop material is really a nice gesture that I will take you up on at some point, just to give me a chance to see your creation!
I see you are using the Carada BW 2.35:1 at 136". That is exactly the screen I was hoping would work in my room. I will be using an 8010 and really want good 3D performance. Is your RS-50 bright enough in 3D when filling that screen? Sitting just 10ft from something over 10ft wide, do you have angle problems? It must be 50deg from the center seat and a lot more from anywhere else in the front row.
I REALLY hope the answer is that you don't have any issues because I would love to think that screen would work for me at similar distances and lumens.

Are you sure that room isn't bigger than 16x22. Mine is 14x19 and yours looks twice the size of mine. Again, awesome execution. A true work of art.

First, your HT is awesome. Your offer for a loan of the backdrop material is really a nice gesture that I will take you up on at some point, just to give me a chance to see your creation!

Thanks, and it's not a loan. It's paper. It will barely survive getting tacked up once...

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I see you are using the Carada BW 2.35:1 at 136". That is exactly the screen I was hoping would work in my room. I will be using an 8010 and really want good 3D performance. Is your RS-50 bright enough in 3D when filling that screen?

Screen is plenty bright, but can't comment on 3D (don't use it).

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Sitting just 10ft from something over 10ft wide, do you have angle problems? It must be 50deg from the center seat and a lot more from anywhere else in the front row.I REALLY hope the answer is that you don't have any issues because I would love to think that screen would work for me at similar distances and lumens.

Nope, the two outer, front row chairs are the last to be filled, but that's to be expected. If I did it over I'd add at least a foot or so distance from front row to the screen.

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Are you sure that room isn't bigger than 16x22. Mine is 14x19 and yours looks twice the size of mine.

Well, they poured the foundation on Jan 13th so less that a month later we are here...

Actually they finished all the interior wall board and all but some of the bricking today. We are about 45 days from moving in.
The HT now looks like this...

Starting to look like a HT.

You have a great room to work with!

Also really liking ur brick job. you don't see many people doing soldiers up the rakes of roofs anymore in gables. at least around where i live. they don't know how to or don't want to take the time. it's kinda a dead art cause all the old masons are fading away. when we did the brink on my home my dad's best friend was my mason. he said it was going to be his "opus" for when he was dead and gone. everyday when i came down he had something going on with soldiers here or there. detail on chimney's. quoin corners or something. then i had to go home and tell my wife to go down and look at what Joe changed from the plans! i will say soldiers up rakes and huge quoin corners are deff the standout details on my house.

This post is useless without pictures!
Plus, I'm having enough trouble communicating with the workers and now you throw in "soldiers up rakes and huge quoin corners" ?? I have not the foggiest idea what that means. Off to Google.
The builders in this community really take their stuff seriously. Especially Highland, who we're using. We're over there every day and it looks good. They even did some awesome customization. There is actually room for 5 cars in there. There is a double depth garage area to the far right facing the house. They actually raised the ceiling to 12 ft on that one to allow me to install a lift to work on my Mustang. We are really excited about the house on many levels. We also picked the darker brick with dark mortar and no frontage stone to give it more of a castle/Gothic look. Then the extra mason work really sets it off. It even has a portico "guard house" you walk through to get to the front door. We will have the Hound of Hell (our Belgian Tervuren named Kaos) to stand watch there.

This post is useless without pictures!
Plus, I'm having enough trouble communicating with the workers and now you throw in "soldiers up rakes and huge quoin corners" ?? I have not the foggiest idea what that means. Off to Google.
The builders in this community really take their stuff seriously. Especially Highland, who we're using. We're over there every day and it looks good. They even did some awesome customization. There is actually room for 5 cars in there. There is a double depth garage area to the far right facing the house. They actually raised the ceiling to 12 ft on that one to allow me to install a lift to work on my Mustang. We are really excited about the house on many levels. We also picked the darker brick with dark mortar and no frontage stone to give it more of a castle/Gothic look. Then the extra mason work really sets it off. It even has a portico "guard house" you walk through to get to the front door. We will have the Hound of Hell (our Belgian Tervuren named Kaos) to stand watch there.

LOL

the bricks going up the room line against where soffit will be. they are standing up like "soldiers". i don't know if that's the correct term actually. That's just what I have always heard them referred to. Quion corners are when the bricks on the corners of the house are boxes out further than the actually corners top to bottom. the right way is each quoin is set one further in than the last and then back out and then back in to give a staggered look. most mason's don't do this cause that's even more work. u usually only see it on older homes or a home done by someone who learned from an older mason or is still working. again at least in my area.